By Nick Georgandis
TennisNow.com
The much-maligned Andy Roddick used his impressive appearance in the semifinals at Basel to climb to No. 8 in the world in this week's ATP Rankings, his highest spot since June 21 of this year.
He fell in the semifinals to Roger Federer, the pair's first meeting since their epic Wimbledon final in 2008. It was Roddick's deepest penetration at a tournament since reaching the semifinals in Cincinnati in mid-August. The move up also put Roddick back in the running for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which will begin in 12 days.
Roddick currently holds the eighth and final spot in the tournament's qualifying points standings, 335 points ahead of Fernando Verdasco. Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Robin Soderling all already have qualified for the event, which will be held in London.
Verdasco dropped two spots from his career-best No. 7 after tumbling in the second round at Valencia last week, falling in straight sets to No. 52 Gilles Simon. Last year, he reached the semifinals of the event. He also was passed in the rankings by fellow Spaniard David Ferrer, who won Valencia, defeating Soderling in the semifinals and erasing upstart Marcel Garollers in the final.
Since falling to Verdasco in an epic five-match set in the fourth round of the US Open, Ferrer has gone 14-3, reached at least the semifinals of three events and defeated Soderling twice. Re-entering the Top 20 for the first-time in two months is American Sam Querrey, who checks in at 20th.
Although he lost in the first round at Basel to Roddick, Querrey took advantage of other players' inability to defend points. The biggest move inside the Top 50 came from the aforementioned Granollers, who vaulted 22 spots to No. 45 with his final appearance at Valencia.
He is one spot away from his career-best position of 44th, claimed in Feb. 2009. The biggest jump in the top 100 came from Croatia's Ivan Dodig, who sprang from 30 spots from 118th to 88th with his win at Astana, Kazakhstan, worth 110 points.